CACE Electronic Journal Center for Applied Christian Ethics, Wheaton College, Wheaton, Illinois October 2007

As appears in Policy Review, Hoover Institute
CAN CONGRESS REVIVE CIVIL SOCIETY?
The retreat of Government, says the senator, does not automatically result in the rebirth of civil society.
In their 1975 book To Empower People, Richard John Neuhaus and Peter Berger challenged policymakers to protect and foster the "mediating structures"--neighborhood, family, church, and voluntary associations-that stand between the private individual and large government institutions. "Wherever possible," they wrote, "public policy should utilize mediating structures for the realization of social purposes."

Twenty years later, Washington is heeding the call. In October 1995, Senator Dan Coats introduced a package of legislative proposals to help empower local, community-based institutions that are addressing social problems. Crafted with the help of William J. Bennett, a codirector of Empower America, the "Project for American Renewal" comprises 19 separate bills designed to use public policy--and public resources--to energize mainly private efforts to meet human needs. Coats defended his legislation at a recent symposium at The Heritage Foundation; what follows are his remarks and critiques by some of the symposium's participants.

Senator Dan Coats Re-funding Our "Little Platoons"
An intellectual revolution is underway concerning the nature of our social crisis. It is no longer credible to argue that rising illegitimacy, random violence, and declining values are rooted in the lack either of economic equality or of economic opportunity. These positions are still current in our political debate, but they have lost their plausibility.

America's cultural decay can be traced directly to the breakdown of certain institutions--families, churches, neighborhoods, voluntary associations--that act as an immune system against cultural disease. In nearly every community, these institutions once created an atmosphere in which most problems--a teenage girl "in trouble," the rowdy neighborhood kids, the start of a drug problem at the local high school--could be confronted before their repetition threatened the existence of the community itself. (read more)

As appears in Books & Culture Magazine, Christianity Today
Moral Issues and Legislative Politics
God, sex, and the U.S. House of Representatives.
by Amy E. Black

How does any researcher begin to explain the motivations and work of 535 unique individuals (or even just the 435 members of the House of Representatives)? Congressional research is not simple, formulaic, or easy to grasp—and that is why political scientists like me find such work both invigorating and infuriating. Books, articles, and datasets can lead us to important insights, but study alone is not enough to grasp the intricacies of a complex and ever-changing institution like the U.S. Congress.

One source of assistance for congressional scholars hoping to explain aspects of legislative behavior is the American Political Science Association (APSA) Congressional Fellowship program, a fellowship based on the novel premise that those who study politics should get real-world experience to better understand the institutions and people they research. Congressional fellows spend a year working as full-time legislative staff on Capitol Hill, gaining an insider's perspective of life in the office of one or two members of Congress. While conducting much of the research for Compromising Positions: God, Sex, and the U.S. House of Representatives, APSA fellow Elizabeth Anne Oldmixon worked for two members of the House of Representatives, Mike Capuano (D-Mass.) and Joe Scarborough (R-Fla.). Her time on Capitol Hill working for members from both political parties gave her a window into the legislative process and access to members of Congress that made this insightful book possible.

Oldmixon began her research with this question: Do legislators approach moral issues differently from other issues they confront during the congressional term? Drawing upon interviews with 35 legislators and key congressional aides, data from a decade of roll call votes and cosponsorship of bills, and census information about congressional districts, she finds that lawmakers—and constituents as well—do indeed approach moral issues distinctively. (read more)

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